I AM LOST upgrading my BIOS!

Discusses BIOS flashers and utilities from Award, AMI and Uniflash
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D_Driskell
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Joined: Sat Dec 21, 2002 11:08 am

I admit right up front: 97.8% of the people that will read this post are more knowledgeable than me, and 97.7% are smarter (but I run into that 0.1% in between with alarming frequency). Okay, stupid jokes aside, I will be very detailed and hope that one of you 97.7% answers with some solid advice or links. Here's my problem (and my inexperience will probably REALLY jump out at you beginning now)...

I want to update my BIOS, you know, flash it, as you 97.8% say. According to the Sandra program, I have a BIOS ID of 62-0920-001437-00101111-040201-SiS735. Sandra says ECS made my Mainboard (which I assume means mother board), and my model is supposed to be K7S5A. I can't even remember how I approached this at that point... I ended up deciding I really had a 830LR model, and PC-Chips made the mobo. Yeah, whatever... When I boot up, I see "American Megatrends, AMD Athlon, 1000 MHz, AMIBIOS, K7S5A, Release 9/20/2001 S... and when I run setup, it says version 1.21.06. Well, being my first time messing with this (and overclocking is next... just as soon as I save enough $$ to replace whatever I fry), I just wanted to try something... I downloaded (I think from PC-Chips) a BIOS (.rom file, right), and from another place I downloaded a ,rom and an executable. I figure, based on what I've read, I need to boot with a disk then flash the BIOS by running the .exe file, which will utilize the .rom file. Well PCChips wants me to run one AMIFL###.exe file, while other web sites say to use another program with different ### (one was ###=807 and one was ###=335). Then I see the PC-Chips lottery! Good grief!

Some smart people may want to ask me why I want to flash the BIOS anyway. Well, I just do. If I fry it, I'll buy it. I don't even remember why now. It all started when I bought a high end game (Morrowind, which I can play fine now, after tweaking). I saw so many web pages talking about BIOS settings that I simply don't seem to have. I don't have anything talking about an AGP aperture size! Grrrr. Plus Sandra recommends stuff like that, and my BIOS seems so simple and lacking. Even if flashing the BIOS does nothing, at least I will have learned how to do it.

Get this, somewhere in my surfing I ended up downloading an AMIBBIOS utility (to identify my mobo manufacturer)... It says that based on my BIOS ID that I have a Pentium Pro, PII, PIII, or Celeron processor. I have an AMD Athlon. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that when I boot up, I have to press reset after pressing the power on... Then I replace the memory stick (256) and it works fine a while, and then I have the same problem. Probably nmothing but their silly utility reporting the wrong thing. But what if the "other" wrong thing is that I need the 830LR (or K7S5A) BIOS? Hmmmm?

I know full well I will not get a response unless I happen across a smart guy who happens to be bored, but if you read everything I wrote, I appreciate you.

Take care, merry Christmas, and if you need more info, I can give it. Thanks.
Denniss
BIOS Guru
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Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2002 8:16 pm
Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
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M830L and K7S5a are the same boards just different colour
With older Bios Pcchips used ECS 1131 Bios-ID and ECs used Pcchips 1437
So you have a K7S5A - should be printed onto your board too
Even with a M830L it's possible to use K7S5A Bios especially the OC-version
Latest Bios is 021129 with SSE-Fix for AthlonXP using the T-Bred "A" or"B" CPU core
Get the Bios from here :
http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ulti ... forum;f=37
You might want to read the K7S5A guide
If you have Win2000 NT or XP you might need to create a Bootdisk on a different computer or you have to activate the W2K Floppy Fix in Bios to prevent Data corruption on the Floppy (BUG in older Bios)

I have this Board too and it's great !
Rainbow
The UniFlasher
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Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 4:16 pm
Location: Slovakia
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AFAIK, the PCB color depends on the board version.
Mercury/Kobian KOB 735 FSX is the same board http://www.kobian.com/products.php?productid=60
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Denniss
BIOS Guru
Posts: 3153
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2002 8:16 pm
Location: Near Hannover (CEBIT) Germany
Contact:

Jep - forgot newer Rev 3.x K7S5A use the same colour as the M830L
Saving costs ?
The black PCB of older boards looks nice but this awful brown ....

Eagletec has a SIS830+ but it's the M830L/K7S5A and there will be many more from Ampttron and Matsonic
http://www.eagletec.nl/mb830+.htm
Rainbow
The UniFlasher
Posts: 3122
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 4:16 pm
Location: Slovakia
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Amptron does not have its own - it's called ECS K7S5A on their page.
Matsonic has no board with SiS730 chipset 8O
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
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